how do such stupid fucking people get on jeopardy???? it is unreal to me.  unfuckingbelievable.

on monday, the scores going into final jeopardy were:

10200, 10800, 21600.  the 10800 btw was the 2-time defending champ.  if 1 and 2 tie btw, they both come back the next day – so the 21600 person is betting 0 always.  somehow, the 2nd place woman gets it right BUT DOESN’T BET IT ALL and comes in 2nd place.  HOW ARE PEOPLE SO FUCKING STUPID?  IT BLOWS MY MIND!

anyone who watches jeopardy with me knows how much i rant about people who don’t bet well in jeopardy.  they never bet nearly enough on daily doubles, despite being like 75% or better to get them right.  for a lot of people, that screws them in the end.  and fair enough, some people are “risk averse” (read: don’t understand strategy.  risk aversion should play no part, since the players never actually have the money – they only have a score which will allow them to win an amount of money equal to that score should they emerge the winner, thus making poor strategy decisions is actually “riskier” than losing the “money”).  i understand some people aren’t as tuned in with betting as i am.  but this final jeopardy blunder is seriously inexcusable… it really.  just.  blows.  my.  mind.

So my awesome poker news is now public and confirmed – I got invited to be on this year’s NBC Heads Up Championship.  It’s a 20k buyin 64 person tourney with $500k as the top prize.  I’ve been wanting to get on this show for a couple of years now, so I’m glad that it finally happened.  It’s sort of a high variance shit show, so I can only hope to make it far, but I’m hoping if I do I can put on a good show and get invited to more of these poker shows.  I’ve thought for a while that so many of my qualities (female, smart, knows how to play poker, talkative, out lesbian) make me a great candidate for TV.  Apparently, bracelet winner helps too   Anyway, whatever they liked about me, hopefully I can keep it going and play in more of these soft fields with my beautiful mug all over your big screen.  Anyway, I’m playing it March 5-8 and then it airs on Sundays in April and May on NBC.  Wish me luck and cheer for me!

This weekend was the Rebellious Lawyering Conference at Yale, which is where a shitload of progressive law students/lawyers/activists and others get together to talk about all different movements, legal strategies within those movements, and whatever else.  I still had my two girls from Argentina staying here for Friday night (their last night in New Haven!) and my friend and old roommate Erin came up for the night.  I also wound up hosting one girl from Columbia Law School and 3 from Harvard.  So, yeah, it was a full house.

The conference was good.  The keynote speaker on Friday night was Van Jones, who runs the organization known as Green for All, which has as its goal the creation of green jobs in low income communities.  He was a remarkable speaker – articulate, funny, engaging, inspiring.  It really was a great hour and a half or so.  The other panels were all right, I didn’t go to all of them because we had to win our intramural basketball game, but I had a few friends who organized panels and I heard they were all great.  So congrats to Helen and Carel and whoeever else I’m missing.

As far as my swings – well I met a girl who is cute from Harvard, which is pretty exciting since everything at Yale is based around a life of celibacy.  I’m going up to Harvard next weekend for a conference and a basketball tournament already, so I think we’re going to try to meet up.  Then I got some really great poker news… it isn’t confirmed yet so I’m not going to post about it, but that was a major rush for the day.  Then that night I went to BAR where they had the conference afterparty, and everyone was out there, including many of the linkages students who were still in town, and dancing and everything else was really fun.  It was one of the best 24 hours I’ve had in a long time.

Then this morning I found in the mail two rejection letters from the two outstanding interviews I had – which brings the total rejections to somewhere in the double digits.  It’s really frustrating because I just want to get a cool job and be an awesome legal intern, which is a switch from before when my mind was centered around poker too much.  I think one of the organizations at least contacted people in the org. I used to work for when I wasn’t focused enough, and probably didn’t get the best report.  It isn’t so hard to just up and change your habits, I guess.  Shit tends to follow you.  Anyway I’m sure I’ll get something and I’ve just got to keep my head up, but this has already been what seems like the neverending job hunt.

Hey guys,

I posted about this on the DC forum, but here goes:

I’m making a series next season in the style of my Omakase episode, where I do a coaching session reviewing some hand histories (NL or PLO, preferably 2/4NL and higher but i’ll accept especially interesting hands from .5/1), and show the coaching sessions for my series.

What I need from you:

An email to vanessa@deucescracked.com with somewhere around 10 hands with: 2 lines of text on relevant reads/stats/thoughts during the hand, a hand converted at thehandconverter.com (and also save the raw HH file).  I will pick the 4 most interesting from each person I want to work with (based on the hands mostly), and I’ll contact you to schedule a time to have a half hour mini coaching session.

Thanks guys.

- V

if you haven’t seen it before, definitely check it out:

Fuck You, Penguin!

it was amazing when i first saw it, then a bunch of the posts got really repetitive so i stopped reading it. but this guy is really stepping it up recently. the posts are funny yet again, and even if you don’t think so, you can just scroll through the pictures which are so goddamn cute!!!

so right now yale law school is running a public interest auction, so i volunteered a couple of poker lessons.  one is for 4 people and is a beginner lesson and the other is a private advanced lesson.  they’re going for $36 and $20, respectively.  LOL.  it’s sort of silly to do that instead of just coaching for an hour for $650 and donating my earnings, but whatever… i guess it’s community building and fun and all that.

in other news, i got in a fight with a cop about 2 weeks ago.  i had planned to blog about it but i’ve been extremely busy… basically he talked shit to me for no reason and i told him he couldn’t be a dick just because he was a cop.  so then he decided to be even more of a dick.  i ended up being thrown in the back of a cop car, but in the end i only got a ticket for jaywalking – i think my friend told him we were law students and he was afraid if he pressed the issue more we might actually get him in trouble for assaulting me and violating our rights.  illegal waving of penis, IMO.

last thing – what do you think of this name for an improv group – “carpal tunnel and a numb crotch”?  i think it has a nice ring.  it came from this conversation tonight.

gabriela: what are you doing for valentine’s day, v?

vanessa: probably masturbating.  you?

gabriela: yeah, i’m doing the same.

vanessa: should we just do it together then?

… brief pause …

gabriela: i think sophie wanted to do a power hour for v day

vanessa: masturbation power hour?

gabriela (to sophie): you wanted to do a power hour, right?

sophie (joining the convo now): yeah, i think it would be super fun!

gabriela: sounds to me like carpal tunnel and a numb crotch…

vanessa (to gabriela): i think she’s talking about a regular power hour.